Recently, I went on wirecutter to figure out what humidifier I should buy. For those of you who aren't familiar with wirecutter, it is a product review website, owned by the NY Times, that does in-depth research on a plethora of products. Need a new toaster? WIRECUTTER. Do you want to know about the best travel products? WIRECUTTER. I'm hooked. In a flash, my amazon-purchased humidifier arrived, and I love it.
The only problem with having a humidifier is that you have to clean it regularly. Under the best of circumstances, I'm not a competent manual reader. This humidifier's cleaning instructions brought things to a whole new level--my head nearly exploded when I turned to the "care & maintenance" section. Thankfully, I'm not alone in feeling this way. One of my clients, who has the same model, said that she felt that she needed a PhD to understand what to do.
Of course, the next step, when one is confused, is to turn to YouTube. So, I did. I typed in how to clean my brand's humidifier and I clicked on the first video that popped up. I was shocked at how simple it was! The video was just under 5 minutes, and I felt overjoyed knowing that I would be able to do this every few weeks without a problem. A minute later, when I was busy de-scaling, another YouTube video popped up about cleaning the same model. This video, instead, was over 20 minutes long. The demonstrator was following the user manual instructions to the T.
While the first video wasn't as thorough, the cleaning was easy and doable. By contrast, the second video was complicated and overwhelming—I felt that I would NEVER be able to do it.
I bet you know where this is going. So often, when it comes to diet and exercise, we make things way too complicated, which causes PARALYSIS. Instead of worrying about the breakdown of protein, fat and carbohydrates in your diet, why not just try to reduce processed foods and eat more fruits and vegetables? Why not start drinking one extra glass of water a day? Why not cook one more meal every week? When it comes to exercise, instead of pondering which type of exercise you should be doing, why not just go for a walk? Or do a 10-minute abs video? Or put on some music and dance around? Once you begin, you can always do more. Given that the most difficult part is STARTING, it makes more sense to introduce small steps, one at a time.
I must confess—I was guilty of procrastinating when it came to cleaning that humidifier. But now that I have a small tool (that YouTube-less-than-5 minute-video), it's going to be easy. Do the same with your approach to diet and exercise. Keep it simple and you'll do it!
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